Attorney: Ex-mayor can't get fair trial

A lawyer for former Green Oaks Mayor Thomas Adams said Monday he believes the child pornography charges against his client should be dismissed because extensive news coverage of the case has made a fair trial impossible.

Waukegan attorney Thomas Briscoe said the flap in July over a phone call from a county board member to the original judge in the case has ruined Adams' chance for a fair trial.

Adams, 69, was arrested in July 2006 after police said they traced child pornography to a computer in Adams' home at 885 Anderson Drive. Pornographic images had been sent to an undercover police officer, police said.

In July of this year, county board member Bob Sabonjian left Lake County Circuit Judge Victoria Rossetti a voice mail message objecting to a reported plea negotiation being considered in the case.

Because people outside a criminal case are not allowed to discuss the matter with a judge, Rossetti and all other Lake County judges decided they could not hear the case against Adams.

Kane County Judge Philip DiMarzio was appointed to hear the case, and Briscoe told DiMarzio on Monday that he believed Sabonjian's phone call was fatal to the prosecution of Adams.

"It stirred up an extensive amount of pre-trial publicity," Briscoe said. "I intend to file a motion claiming his right to an impartial trial has been destroyed."

Assistant State's Attorney Patricia Fix declined to comment on the motion before a hearing.

DiMarzio scheduled a hearing on the motion for Nov. 2 and said he would set a trial date then if the motion was unsuccessful.

Adams, who was Green Oaks mayor from 1993 until his resignation shortly after his arrest, faces a mandatory prison sentence of at least four years if convicted of distributing child pornography.